Last week we discussed the future of mobile-led consumer behaviour, the fact that mobile e-commerce has, in multiple respects, now overtaken e-commerce in the desktop space.
Today Google has decided to go nuclear in accelerating this change …
As this goes into effect, over half of Australia’s largest companies will drop in rankings on Google search as the US technology giant implements its next round of algorithm changes.
This change means that when people are searching on their tablet computers or smartphones Google will only prioritise companies that have “mobile friendly” websites.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, “Google says businesses with desktop-only sites will still appear in searches but they will be ranked lower than those tailored for mobile use”.
Take a look at this great timeline of Google algorithm changes.
According to Roi.com.au even multinational businesses such as Coco Cola Amatil and BHP Billiton do not have mobile-friendly sites and will also fall in Google search rankings despite their global reach and impact.
These changes to Search Engine Optimization may have come as a confronting surprise and you may not see the impact straight away but as with the previous – we can help.
Lilian Chia Digital Designer at OnQue believes, “it is vitally important to have mobile responsive sites, as an increasing number of people prefer the convenience of viewing sites on their phone or tablet”.
A few mobile specific areas that we believe are important
- Mobile Location services, this makes the need for more local content greater.
- Mobile conversion, how do you actually get your audience to engage on their phones?
- Mobile User eXperience, you should be able to use your site one handed while walking the dog, carrying the baby and drinking that Latte.
Additionally, we think you should be preparing for the future:
- Make sure you use a Content Management Solution (CMS) as a backend, this will help when Google starts testing for tailored, individual content.
- Understand your analytics, Google Analytics is a start but definitely not the end to optimising your site for mobile.
- Security and Accessibility, make sure your site is tested for both to ensure peace of mind and the broadest community support.
- Web Browser – Speed Efficiency, if you don’t know about this please ask!
- Mobile responsive e-mail
At OnQue we believe you should be upgrading to a system that enables non-technical users to manage the content without having to worry about distinguishing between mobile and desktop.
Having this single responsive site reduces the need to test a wide gamut of sites on multiple devices.
We can also help create user-friendly accessibility for vision or mobile impairment – For example infinite scrolling is detrimental for sufferers of RSI so we would suggest an independent page hierarchy for easy accessibility.
OnQue has being making beautiful mobile experiences for a long time and some of our pioneering examples include:
Contact us now to discuss how we can help you can upgrade your site to be responsively mobile friendly.